dohboi wrote:Boston mostly rises steeply out of the ocean, and except for Back Bay perhaps, is not in much threat from sea level rise.

The Miami area, on the other hand regularly floods now with high tide, especially 'king' tides.

So no, we don't have to wait for slr to be problem. It already is a big problem is lots of places, and those problems will get worse and worse, and will spread to more and more places.

Many of the places that are already experiencing problems are doing so due to land subsidence much more then sea level rise. Louisiana being the prime example. Even if sea levels were dropping they would still have a problem caused by the levy system preventing the Mississippi from periodically inundating the delta lands and depositing fresh layers of silt. The problem has been known about for decades and the only surprising thing is how little positive action has been taken to deal with it.

Global Ocean Circulation Appears To Be Collapsing Due To A Warming Planet

...Evidence is growing that the comparatively cold zone within the Northern Atlantic could be due to a slowdown of this global ocean water circulation. Hence, a slowdown in the planet's ability to transfer heat from the tropics to the northern latitudes. The cold zone could be due to melting of ice in the Arctic and Greenland. This would cause a cold fresh water cap over the North Atlantic, inhibiting sinking of salty tropical waters. This would in effect slow down the global circulation and hinder the transport of warm tropical waters north....

Meaning that the weather will start turning much colder in Europe (goodbye mild weather in your 50+deg latitude lands) and the waters in the Gulf of Mexico and Tropical North Atlantic will retain more heat - which will power increasingly more powerful hurricanes.

The BBC ordered a fact check. That's thick and rich. More proof the MSM is a waste of space. It is in large part responsible for the lack of action until this point. Spreading denier opinions as if they were equivalent to actual understanding was and still is to some extent the norm.

Newfie wrote:Well they are out there anyway. I don’t see any additional expense.

But also, what is the cost of having no fish?

That an interesting point. Hard to place a price on something that isn't there. In this case the cost of building and running fish farms in protected off shore areas might serve. Perhaps in the future they will suspend nets from wind mill to wind mill using them as fence posts to surround the wind farm as a fish farm.

Reuters - California will block the transport of petroleum from new offshore oil rigs through its state, officials told Reuters, a move meant to hobble the Trump administration’s effort to vastly expand drilling in U.S. federal waters. California's threat to deny pipeline permits for transporting oil from new leases off the Pacific Coast is the latest step by states trying to halt the biggest proposed expansion in decades of federal oil and gas leasing. Officials in Florida, North and South Carolina, Delaware and Washington, have also warned drilling could despoil beaches, harm wildlife and hurt lucrative tourism industries."

No problamo. A simple matter to produce the oil into tankers from an offshore (in federal waters) production facility. Commonly done around the world where pipeline access isn't available. Could be a little more expensive...or not depending on the water depth. Granted this greatly increases the possibility of an oil spill during the production phase. And a lack of pipeline access has zero effect on reducing the risk of an oil spill while drilling. As happened with the largest oil spill in US history: BP's Macondo.

And the best part for the companies: the state of CA would have no say in the operations. The oil would be inexpensively transported up the CA coast to refineries in Washington. I wonder if the CA politicians would ban the import of products made from oil produced of their coastline?

Could be a little more expensive...or not depending on the water depth.

FPSO's are a lot cheaper to rent these days. Dayrates in and around $75K add some lifting costs and it still likely beats the cost of building a pipeline and then the associated repairs and abandonment costs. If shallower water you can just have an FSO aligned with a small production platform, also much cheaper set up than it was 5 years ago.